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AroSpecAwarenessWeek: Day 5 – Relationships (After)

Thursday, February 23: Write about the relationships in your life after you learned about the aromantic spectrum and began identifying on the spectrum. What kinds of relationships do you appreciate more now, if any? What’s different for you identifying as aromantic? What’s different in viewing the people around you?

I can really see a clear difference now to how I value my friendships compared to what I used to. I really value my platonic relationships, and they honestly mean the world to me because I don’t know where I’d be without them. Without finding about the aro spectrum and how I identify with it I honestly believe I wouldn’t have been able to notice this divide that I had between my romantic and platonic relationships. And with the help of discovering who I am I was able to understand that no relationship (platonic, familial, platonic etc) is more important than the other.

My values on my two friendships that I do have, are so different to how I used to be. Even though neither of them live in my country I feel like if they needed me I would drop everything for them because I love them so much (#no romo). And I just really love that I’ve come so far in understanding the value of these friendships and I 100% believe it’s because of my aromanticism. Friendships are so important, and I live for them. Without these two important platonic relationships in my life I feel like my life wouldn’t have been the same because I trust these two people with everything. They helped me through things that they may not even know about, and to be honest they helped me discover things about myself and my interests that I’d never thought I’d get into.

In my previous post I said something about the voice in my head that kept telling me that I was annoying people whenever I talked to them. I’ve noticed with the acceptance of my aromanticism and these two friendships, whom I’ve been speaking to for nearly two years, that this voice has slowly started to die down, because I no longer have the fear that they won’t accept me because I’ve opened up to them so much. With these two lovely human beings I feel like I could talk to them about anything, no matter what time of day it is and I honestly don’t think they hate me or that they find me annoying (of course there’s probably topics that one or the other would rather me not speak about and vice versa but that’s what friendship is isn’t it?).

Platonic internet friendships to me now are what I strive for, they mean the world to me. Some people might not understand this, my mum for example is one, because of the fact that we’ve never seen each other, and before you ask if I know the people I’m talking to are 100% legit I can vouch for them, one of them I’ve Skyped with, so I know that they’re real.

The last thing I want to touch up on is the fact with finding out about the aromantic spectrum I’ve come to understand the difference between romantic crushes and friendship squishes (or friendship crushes). I’ve realised that what I thought was a romantic crush was really a squish, and that’s 100% valid and okay. I just wish that I knew the term when I was younger because it would’ve made my life 100% easier.

Overall I can say that I truly love my friends, and I wouldn’t be here without them. I love them with all my heart (platonically of course).